Transcript

00:00:00

>> Minutes after the polling station closed on Sunday, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front, said she would completely overhaul the party. She didn't say exactly what that would be, but clearly she's trying to get away from her crushing defeat. And she's trying to move on and trying to present herself in a new light.

00:00:18

I'm Ingrid Melander Senior Political Correspondent for Reuters in France, here in Paris. For decades, for over 40 years, National Front has been there, it's a very well known brand. So there is a risk entailed into maybe changing the name or changing the party. But at the same time, one of National Front's problem is they're very isolated in the French political scene.

00:00:38

So clearly their hoping by overhauling it, maybe more people, more politicians, more voters will join them. Marine Le Pen and her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was a cofounder of the National Front more than 40 years ago, and was convicted several times for incitement to hatred for minimizing the Holocaust, have had a very difficult relation for years.

00:00:58

They say they don't talk to each other anymore, although he still lends her money for her campaigns. So we're standing here in front of the statue of Joan of Arc, in the Place des Pyramides. It's quite symbolic for the National Front. They used to come together every year on May 1st, to honor the memory of Joan of Arc.

00:01:16

But he came uninvited on the stage while she was giving a speech two years ago. Since then, she's kicked him out of the party, and she's not coming here anymore. More than 10.5 million voters backed the National Front on Sunday, so clearly it's a force that's not gonna go away any time soon.

00:01:34

Centrist Emmanuel Macron, who won the election against Le Pen on Sunday, immediately came out and said, in both his speeches, that he was aware that a lot of voters voted backed extremist policies. And that he respected them and that he was gonna try and bring everybody together.>>